featuring guest authors; crafting tips and projects; recipes from food editor and sleuthing sidekick Cloris McWerther; and decorating, travel, fashion, health, beauty, and finance tips from the rest of the American Woman editors.

Holiday Blog Hop Starting December 11th

Holiday Blog Hop

Blog Hop begins December 11th. Click on the graphic above for a schedule and list of giveaways, including a $60 Amazon gift card.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

HEALTHY LIVING WITH GUEST AUTHOR TRACEE LYDIA GARNER

Tracee Lydia Garner is a bestselling, award-winning author who writes
stories full of complex heroes and heroines, relationships and families that
experience tough but realistic life challenges in their quest for love. Tracee
works in health and human service by day, has a degree in communication and is
a speaker and advocate for people with disabilities. Learn more about Tracee and her
books at her website.

As a wheelchair user with
limited range of motion and mobility, a brisk run around the block is out of
the question, so I went back to a talk I just gave recently to my local
Toastmasters group. I work full time outside the home, and I spend my nights
writing and publishing my novels. Weekends find me promoting my books at author
conferences and book fairs. Mental and physical health is just something we all
do with little thought, but here’s a rundown of exactly what I’m doing to
ensure I stay aware to stay well.

1. Self-Association

2. Self-Talk

3. Self -Listening

4. Self Watch

What does all that mean?
First, in order to have control of our influence(s), you first have to monitor
who we associate with. Take out your phone and scroll through your list of
contacts. Who in that list do you dread speaking to? Who do you get excited about?
Call them instead. For all of us, there is someone on that list that is
draining, maybe even a little selfish, and when you see their name on your
screen or pick up the phone and hear their voice, you’re like, “oh no!”

Why is this? How can you
make it better? How does that person make you feel?

Next is Self-Talk (or
Speak) and it’s pretty self explanatory - what you say is what you are. If you
really believed that, you may start trying to trap negativity before it gets
out of your mouth. Speak positively and negativity will run away.

Lastly, Self-Watch and Self-Listen
are really important. We live in a world where we are bombarded by images. I
don’t watch much television, and this year I’ve decided I’ll be turning off the
telly more than ever. I feel so much better without a constant barrage of data
yelled to me. How annoying. Know what else? I get so much more done with my
writing if I’m able to focus and not constantly turning my head to look at
what’s on the television. DVR your programs so you can cut down on television
and the commercials.

Turn off your TV Week, now
called Screen Free Week is May 1 - 7. Look at some of the sites that talk about
the origination of this observance as they often offer alternatives, fun
meet-ups where you get together, get to know your neighbors and work on
different causes and projects that really need our attention. Within that week,
try to pay more attention to how you feel. What did you do? What didn't you
do?

Here’s another thing about
so much television: you may find you want to consume less material and
merchandise because the power of suggestion (through commercials) isn’t there
to tell you what you’re “missing”. I’m not at all saying TV is bad; I like TV.
I’m saying we likely don’t realize the effects it can have on us even when we
don’t think it does or we believe that it’s just background noise and we’re not
really paying attention.

With Self-Listening, do
you ever listen to positive affirmations or uplifting stories in the morning?
Or do you hear first about congestion for your (already dreaded) morning
commute and who died? Try to begin the day by saying five great (and truthful)
things about your life, your family, your work and/or yourself. See how you
feel. See if that has some small impact to help you start out better. There’s
plenty of folly to be had in the day. Why invite it first thing in the morning?

This all seems so simple,
but when you’re busy and cruising through life, it’s so easy to get caught up
and forget to observe the little things.

This
is all part of my mental and physical health regimen. I hope there are some
things you can take to add to your own.

Deadly Affections

How far would you go to uncover the truth?

Psychologist Leedra Henderson has a hidden motive in abandoning everything
to accept a new job at the Anchored Empowerment Center. She secretly hopes that
the new position will help her to investigate her own past – and to finally
uncover the real story behind a string of mysterious deaths at her childhood
foster home.

Now a strong, independent woman, Leedra doesn't need help: she wants to
seek justice, and she will. Alone.

Can you really limit your involvement when love is on the ticket?

Dexter Parker needs his own answers about that time in the foster home
so long ago. A grown man reeling from the fallout of a broken marriage,
Dexter’s rational mind tells him never to try the risks of love again – but he
knows he could fill in the blanks for Leedra, if only it doesn’t end up costing
him his heart.

More urgently, Dexter needs to save the determined Leedra from the
results of her detective work, before it all blows up in her face and costs
both of them their lives.

Can the pair set aside their painful histories, avenge the lives that
have been lost and – who knows – discover new love?

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Newsletter

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SCRAPBOOK OF MURDER

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 6

SLEUTHING WOMEN II: 10 MYSTERY NOVELLAS

LITERALLY DEAD: an Empty Nest Mystery, Book 2

SLEUTHING WOMEN: 10 FIRST-IN-SERIES MYSTERIES

A collection of 10 full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem, each the first book in an established multi-book series

A STITCH TO DIE FOR

Book 5 in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series

MOM SQUAD: a Shadow Ops Novella

WE'D RATHER BE WRITING

BAKE, LOVE, WRITE

DEFINITELY DEAD

An Empty Nest Mystery, Book 1

CRAFTY CRIMES

a Trio of Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mysteries

PATCHWORK PERIL

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

DECOUPAGE CAN BE DEADLY

MOSAIC MAYHEM

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

REVENGE OF THE CRAFTY CORPSE

CREWEL INTENTIONS

an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

DEATH BY KILLER MOP DOLL

ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN

THE ANASTASIA POLLACK CRAFTING MYSTERIES

Read about Anastasia in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery seriesby Lois Winston. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews called it "North Jersey's more mature answer to Stephanie Plum." Assault With a Deadly Glue Gunwas also a Book of the Year Award nominee from ForeWord Reviews, a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist, and a Readers Choice Award nominee from the Salt Lake City Library System. Other books in the series include Death by Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, Decoupage Can Be Deadly, A Stitch to Die For, and Scrapbook of Murder, plus three mini-mysteries: Crewel Intentions,Mosaic Mayhem, and Patchwork Peril. Look for more of Anastasia's adventures coming in the future.

About Me

I'm the crafts editor at American Woman magazine; the single parent of two teenage boys and a Shakespeare quoting parrot; caretaker to a semi-invalid, communist mother-in-law from Hell and her demon dog; daughter to a multi-married descendant of the Czars (supposedly); reluctant cat-sitter to Mama's extremely corpulent white Persian cat; a born Jersey girl; and star of my own amateur sleuth mystery series.